What is Hispanic Heritage Month? 5 facts you need to know
HISPANIC Heritage Month happens every year in the US from September 15 to October 15 to honor the contributions and history of Hispanics and Latinos.
September 15 was chosen as the starting point for the commemoration because it is the anniversary of independence of five Hispanic countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, who all declared independence in 1821.
Here is more on the origins of Hispanic Heritage Month.
What is Hispanic Heritage Month?
Hispanic Heritage Month is an annual recurring commemoration of Hispanic heritage in the US.
Before being celebrated a full month, it first began as Hispanic Heritage Week, sponsored by Rep. Edward R. Roybal of Los Angeles.
It was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968.
In 1988, the commemorative week was expanded to a month beginning on September 15 through October 15.
The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Esteban Edward Torres (D-Pico Rivera) and was amended by Senator Paul Simon.
The observation of the month of Hispanic Heritage was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.
What percentage of the US population is Hispanic?
In 2019, Hispanic population in the US reached 60.6 million, up from 50.7 million in 2010.
Hispanics are the nation’s second-fastest-growing racial or ethnic group after Asian Americans.
They made up 18 percent of the US population in 2019, which marks the difference in 2010 when it was only 16 percent and just 5 percent in 1970.
How many Latinos speak English in the US?
In 2018, 71 percent of Latinos ages five and older spoke English proficiently, going up significantly from 59 percent in 2000.
US-born Latinos who speak English grew from 81 percent to 90 percent during this time.
By comparison, 37 percent of Latino immigrants spoke English proficiently in 2018, a percentage that has increased only slightly since 1980.
How many Latinos are US citizens?
Four in five Latinos are US citizens.
As of 2018, about 80 percent of Latinos living in the US are citizens, up from 74 percent in 2010.
This includes people born in the US and its territories, such as Puerto Rico, people born abroad to American parents and immigrants who have become naturalized citizens.
What are the origins of the fastest population growth in US Latinos?
From 2010 to 2018, the Venezuelan population in the US increased 106 percent to 492,000 which makes it by far the fastest growth rate.
Dominicans and Guatemalans each saw increases of 37 percent, followed by a 34 percent increase among the Honduran population.
Puerto Ricans, the second-largest origin group overall, saw their population jump by 23 percent, to 5.8million in 2018.
How many Latinos are eligible to vote in the US?
32million Latinos are projected to be eligible to vote in 2020, which marks a difference from 27.3 million in 2016.
The 2020 election will mark the first time that Hispanics will be the largest racial and ethnic minority group in the electorate.
While there is a notable difference between Hispanics and Latinos, the month-long celebration aims to recognize all spanish-speaking countries and their achievements in the US.
Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans and Central Americans are all Latinos and speak Spanish, despite that they are from completely different parts of the world.
What is the difference between Hispanic and Latino?
The term is used interchangeably to identify spanish-speaking people but they hold different meanings.
- Hispanic refers to people who speak Spanish and/or are descended from Spanish-speaking populations (Spain)
- Latino refers to people who are from or descended from people from Latin America (Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, etc)
- Latin America consists of 20 countries and 14 independent territories extending to the Caribbean
- Both terms were meant to refer to ethnicity, not race but the US uses them for either
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“I think that one of the roles of people in our communities, particularly leaders in our communities, has to always work on identifying the ways in which these terms, these categories, are exclusionary, and always look towards better language and better approaches that are more inclusionary than exclusionary,” said Stephen Pitti, founding director of Yale’s Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity and Transnational Migration.
Some scholars argue that the contributions of the Hispanic and Latino communities have paved the way for US history to exist.
“I’m waiting for this moment when Americans broadly come to think of Latino history as American history at large, and therefore every day becomes a celebration of Latino history because that is American history,” said Geraldo Cadava, director of the Latino and Latina Studies Program at Northwestern University.
